Have you ever consulted with a physician when starting a new diet?

MIne rechecked sugar levels only once after 6 months. The rest was every year. I can’t imagine the stuff you mentioned needs monthly fine-tuning unless you are ill.

If you eat no meat, take a sublingual B12 daily or when you remember.

You can do your BP daily at home with a cuff if it is important for you to see the numbers.

If you eat well, only less, you should flourish. “Have more fun and fret less” works for me.

Not monthly tuning, I just mean after the first month. People are more likely to adhere to the diet well in the first few weeks, after that they start cheating or slack off altogether.

Always if it’s with supplements or anything besides exercise and cutting calories. My doc and I have not been impressed thus far and I’m still too chubby dang it.

For me, I would not do anything to my negatively affect my body because I’m not obese or anything, my overall health is more important than losing 20lbs.

The only type of dieting I ever do is based on moderation. I don’t really change what I eat as much I do the portions and return trips for seconds. Then I try and stay active between meals.

This is something I’ve never practiced with alcohol. I’ve heard that can kill you.

I’ve considered trying a drastic diet change that some people claim helps with my digestive problems. I’ve run it past doctors and they generally say not to bother. GI’s don’t seem to believe in dietary treatment for my condition. I’m a little torn as to whether to try anyway, but given that I really didn’t want to go on this diet in the first place, I kind of use their opinion as an excuse not to do it.

I have had great success in the past when I lost 50 lbs. under the supervision of a nutritionist.He couldn’t do blood work but was helpful (particularly since I paid him for weekly visits) includng the food diary I kept, like a very good girt.

Your body should have enough stores of fats and vitamins to not noticeably affect blood levels until at least 3 months out.

@Mariah . . . What type of digestive problem is it? if you don’t mind me asking I suffer from diverticulitis and it has landed me in the hospital twice. The first time I was bleeding internally and had some of my colon removed. The second time was because I still felt I knew better than the doctors and kept eating the foods I wasn’t supposed to. The second time was a wake up call and I no longer eat nuts, popcorn, and berries with hard seeds. I also began eating at least two helpings of yogurt, which I am not a fan of, every day and I have noticed that these these small changes have helped.

I was 16 when I went on Atkins for 4 months, and I didn’t consult with a doctor first. It turned into more of a starvation diet because I got so sick of the food (eggs, meat, cheese, blech!) that I would rather not eat at all. I lost 40 lbs in those 4 months and vowed never to try Atkins again. I didn’t experience any health problems that I was aware of but, like I said, I wouldn’t have known if something was wrong if it was.

Since then, I’ve gone between what some might call binge eating and what most would call healthy eating. Right now I’m eating healthy more often than not. I figure if going from 3500 calories a day to 1500 is going to affect my health, it’ll probably be a good thing.

I’ve actually never had any of the tests you mentioned ran for me (aside from BP of course). I really should get a PCP…

@Blondesjon Nah, it’s fine. I have ulcerative colitis…well, now doctors are starting to wonder if it’s actually been Crohn’s disease all along. I’ve had quite a few blood transfusions and my entire colon removed. I eat a pretty “soft” diet most of the time, avoiding most of the foods you mentioned. Oddly enough, I have a “backwards” relationship with antibiotics and probiotics – antibiotics make me regular, probiotics fuck me up. The diet I’ve considered trying is called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and requires you to eat zero carbs and complex sugars (only sugar allowed is glucose). Thanks for sharing your experience. :)

@Mariah . . . That certainly sounds like Crohn’s. My Mom went through a lot of what you have nearly thirty years ago when the disease was not very well known. I wish you a lot of luck and you have my sympathy for the shitty dietary needs and diets. I miss peanuts and pecans so fucking much.

My Mom found relief by eliminating anything ‘white’ from her diet. White sugar, white flour, white pasta, white rice, etc. She said most of it was easy except for the pasta. In her words, “whole grain spaghetti tastes like what regular spaghetti would shit”.

@drhat77 Well, cholesterol in particular for myself; if I go vegan, or very close, my cholesterol can drop over 50 points in less than a month. I would guess if I had ever done one of the no carb diets with tons of animal foods my cholesterol would easily have been over 300 in two weeks time. I never tried it though. Afraid I might have died. Recently my iron numbers have been getting better. I have been taking a lot of iron, but also heavily increased my leafy greens intake and fruits. I am kind of curious how much it would have come up without the supplements. That diet of raw greens is not good for me though, I can’t stick with it in the amounts I was, because if digestive problems.

@Mariah A friend of mine was diagnosed with pan ulcertive colitis and when she changed her diet she was drastically better. This was after dealing with it for many years. She actually thinks her diagnosis was wrong to begin with. It hurt her ability to get health insurance for low premiums, all sorts of problems.

@Blondesjon @JLeslie Thanks. I’ve never gotten relief from any diet, even eating nothing for two months (IV nutrition). But, I’ve also never taken the plunge and tried the SCD, and I feel guilty all the time for that. I’m already underweight without eliminating my favorite things from my diet, I just don’t know how I’d do it.

@Mariah I’m not trying to convince or preach to you, just giving info. The way you thought it through makes sense to me. I was diagnosed with something many years ago and a lot of people swore a diet low in oxilates would help. I never believed it. I finally eventually did try it for a short time and it did nothing to help me.

Since I am regularly under a doctors supervision, I rarely need to consult her outside of my regular appointments.

@JLeslie Oh yeah I know. But probably at some point I should at least try cutting out carbs, for my peace of mind if nothing else. (Incidentally I eat a low oxalate diet to avoid kidney stones. Mind if I ask what these people were claiming it would treat? Just interested)

It was for vulva pain. It never made sense to me. Their theory was their own urine was an irritant to their vulva. Also, that small crystals might be scraping them up. Maybe it was for some of them, but that was not my problem.

I’m so lucky that I can eat most anything – in modest amounts – and not have it affect my health. As long as I watch my calories and am being active, I don’t get obsessive about testing.

@janbb You bring up a good point that it really would be mostly for people who have some sort of pre-existing health concern. Like my cholesterol problem. Some people eat all sorts of choesterol filled foods and don’t have high cholesterol. Unless the diet was very extreme testing probably wouldn’t reveal much.

@Blondesjon The moderation you talk about I would not think testing would be warranted either.